National Stadium

Within hours of the Chilean military coup in September 1973, soldiers began rounding up political prisoners, and for the next two months some 12,000 people were sequestered in Santiago's national soccer stadium, where they were starved, raped, tortured, and murdered. Director Carmen Luz Parot made this 2001 documentary to counter the country's deepening amnesia about those events, combining archival footage and video interviews with former prisoners as they walk the stadium grounds describing their experiences. Filmmaking doesn't get much plainer than this, but the fascinating testimony on a tragic subject more than compensates for the lack of polish. Especially poignant witness comes from the survivors of electrical torture, and from a guilt-stricken former guard who discovered his own brother among the prisoners. In Spanish with subtitles. 90 min.
ByCliff Doerksen